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Marie-Anne Coninsx (Former EU Ambassador at Large for the Arctic; IPF Board Member; Senior Fellow, Egmont Institute) and Michael Sfraga (Ambassador-at-Large for Arctic Affairs, United States) give closing remarks at the end of the Arctic Futures Symposium 2024.

The 15th annual Arctic Futures Symposium began with a welcome from the organisers and four keynote speeches.

This panel highlighted what the Norwegian Arctic Council Chairship has been able to achieve in spite of the current geopolitical situation and what the Kingdom of Denmark Chairship will carry on when it takes over in 2025.

Changing political dynamics between Arctic states and within Arctic states have the potential to accelerate the transformation of the Arctic from an area apart from geopolitical tension to an area of geopolitical competition. All Arctic Council states apart from Russia are now NATO members, and these Arctic 7 must grapple with increasingly challenging ties to Russia and China. Although current points of tension do not stem from the Arctic, this does not preclude heightened tensions from being expressed in the European High North, North Atlantic, or the North American Arctic. Climate change is opening new opportunities for trans-Arctic trade, drawing interests from both Arctic and non-Arctic States. This panel was split into two 45-minute panels with three speakers each. The first focused on Transatlantic Cooperation Priorities : What Will Be New in 2025 and After, and the second focused on Transatlantic Cooperation on the Ground: How Transatlantic Cooperation Can Deliver.

Riding in a Toyota Hilux towards PEA after spending some time at Perseus Airfield to prepare for the arrival of scientists in a few days!

This week two members of our team traveled to the coast when they just so happened to encounter a pod of Arnoux's beaked whales swimming and feeding amongst the seaice. These whales are very rarely seen, and marine biologists still know very little about their feeding habits and behavior, which made this sighting even more special!  

This videos is a timelapse of the opening days of the 2024-25 season. We can see how snow is being cleared from around the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica!

A member of our team works diligently to clear all the snow from in-front of the Princess Elisabeth station that had piled up over the winter months. 

There can be strong winds at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica which is ideal for our renewable ideology. Almost all the energy produced at PEA either comes from these wind turbines or the solar PV panels that line the building and facade.